I think the real issue is that a lot of people (i was) are under the impression that Paystack is to Flutterwave as Tech Cabal is to Wordpress. If that’s not the case, it’s a bit somehow to the Paystack guys

Access Bank decided to re-organize/re-package PayWithCapture into two biz entities
The card payment acceptance API became an independent entity (sort of) - Flutterwave. Led by Iyin.

This here is exactly what I intended to say when I said “more on this later” above when referring to Flutterwave’s relationship with Access Bank, but I wasn’t sure it was in my place to say that - considering Iyin never brought this up in his Twitter sermons. However, I’m glad you did.

A bulk of current Flutterwave staff were former PayWithCapture staff - they are here on Radar, and can confirm this. And if the published APIs are paid attention to, Flutterwave (at least as at launch), was PayWithCapture APIs with a new name.

I hate to feel like the Paystack guys right now. It’s hard to build anything that just works, and that’s usually tens of components in the air, even at the early stage.

Using Flutterwave or not, it’s wrong to communicate or perpetuate the idea that reduces the work of another company to mere “retailer” or nonsense or technology reseller. Generally, that’s nonsense and major BS.

At Revova, we use Flutterwave as our ACH provider, but I’ll be mad if anyone calls us a “technology reseller”. That’ll be insulting, and very unfortunate to the work of my friends knowing ACH is just a piece of many things we need.

I have personally heard variations of this, and even though I know better because I’m somewhat close to one of the companies, it gets me the wrong way. The other day at Stripe HQ, a friend was so confident it was the case. I tried correcting him but hey, I was not even up for argument at the time. This story has persisted for so long, and it is starting to seem like deliberate obfuscation of a major story.

If we must say this as it is, this reduces the value of Paystack, and even from an investment perspective. Who wants to invest in a technology reseller? No company feeds another company, if it’s just of a case of customer or partner relationship.

Personally, I think it’ll be important the guys at Flutterwave address this, and re-tell their narrative unless they enjoy how this story benefits them as the Lord and personal savior storyline of all fintech companies like @kananga is insisting. Or their customers.

One day, someone will come here to say Uber is a reseller of Flutterwave’s technology. I don’t know if it is ignorance or it’s just a case of how one company has delivered its proposition or tell it.

As far as I’m concerned, everyone is doing very important work. No one/company is greater or lesser than the other even if company A needs company B services for a piece of what it needs done. Every company is free to communicate/pursue their mission as they want, but it doesn’t necessarily mean yours is grander than mine or be communicated as that, to be very frank in the scheme of things, but I digress.

Point is, Braintree is not greater than Airbnb because Airbnb processes all their bookings through them if I’m not mistaken now. These things are even quite orthogonal which makes this generally sad. I must just stop here.

This thread was just brought to my attention. I apologize for the delay with responding. As you know it is Christmas commerce season and we have been busy making sure our clients can process transactions safely and reliably.

We have the same relationship with Paystack as we have had with all our other clients like Simple Pay, Amplified Pay and Revova. They route transactions through us whenever expedient just like they do with Interswitch.

Our public communications has been crisp and clear with respect to where we play in the ecosystem. We enable innovators building payment products to do so quickly, safely and efficiently while we handle the more complex aspects of the technology for financial institutions . We do this across multiple channels beyond card payments (which is a very small piece of our business) and we do this across several African countries seamlessly in partnership with Pan African financial institutions.

For me the feedback is we could be a lot clearer about communicating what we do. We have committed to fixing this in the new year. We apologize for any offense taken and any damage caused. It was not intended.

However, one has to wonder especially given this thread if this is a marketing attempt to start a fight that doesn’t really exist. If it is - it’s not a good strategy and it is destroying our ecosystem. Anyone worth their salt in this space knows we do different things so why the hostility?

The key thing is ‘Storytelling’. Tell the world your story the way you want it to be written otherwise others will tell the world your story the way you can’t retell it.

It is interesting because many would have probably seen the story develop from ten thousand miles away. This is a lesson for all hardworking folks in the ecosystem. It’s more than having a brilliant product. It’s way beyond that in these days of mobile reporters - social media generation/culture. It is very easy to have the wrong narrative, just very easy.

However, one has to wonder especially given this thread if this is a marketing attempt to start a fight that doesn’t really exist.

Me fa, I really don’t even understand why Paystack is responding with long essay and thesis. We use them on our platform at okadabooks.com and its been an epic lifesaving experience of mass financial benefit!

"The Lion does not need to roar at all animals, its reputation can roar for it."

For me the feedback is we could be a lot clearer about communicating what we do. We have committed to fixing this in the new year. We apologize for any offense taken and any damage caused. It was not intended.

This was necessary

iaboyeji:

However, one has to wonder especially given this thread if this is a marketing attempt to start a fight that doesn’t really exist.

This, on the other hand, wasn’t. You make it seem like they’ve made these things up in their heads when it’s simply a response to a common assumption. I mean, the guy in the Hotels thread pretty much prompted this.

Paystack is essentially a “reseller” of FlutterWave’s excellent payment tech. The main product they “resell” is the FlutterWave Pay Button.

However, one has to wonder especially given this thread if this is a marketing attempt to start a fight that doesn’t really exist. If it is - it’s not a good strategy and it is destroying our ecosystem. Anyone worth their salt in this space knows we do different things so why the hostility?

You don’t have to be dismissive, Iyin. Since your narrative for Flutterwave started mid year, we did our best to stay out of the way, regardless of how much it hurt us to watch people get the wrong impression of our relationship. I was very clear at the beginning of this thread that it was to address misconceptions raised by a user on a different thread, one in which I was not interested in derailing further.

This was a message I sent to someone earlier when the reseller thing came up on the previous thread.
I personally do not enjoy that I had to do this - I mentioned this to you the last time you were at my apartment, but it had to be done. I am sure you agree with me on this, and would do the same if Flutterwave was caught up in some false narrative.

Thanks @iaboyeji for being diplomatic about the matter. Your explanation is very gracious.

I didn’t realise radar was a paystack circle jerk. The amount of hostility directed towards me for stating plain facts is staggering, but that’s alright, I probably deserve some of it for the choice of words I used in my initial statement (By which I still stand).

For one, all these companies (especially Paystack and Pay With Capture) have been operating for a while. Has Flutterwave been servicing these clients since? If so, who was running the firm before Iyin’s announcement? Delaware public records do not show the owners of the company, and Flutterwave hasn’t answered our question concerning this directly.

But more importantly, how long before Flutterwave starts to offer startups the same services as Paystack? While both teams are coy about this, it seems illogical to assume that Flutterwave would continue to allow a middle man sit between them and the companies that ultimately use their services. Once the infrastructure is built, what stops them from allowing anyone stick a payment interface in their web or mobile app? Finally, how do comapnies like Paystack distinguish themselves from other payment providers when anyone can connect to Flutterwave’s API and launch their own payment service? Is there room for more than one payment processor in this market?

I noticed that there is a lot of “tip toeing” around the issue, I wonder why that is. People don’t want to hurt other people’s feelings?

Whenever there is a lot obfuscation, the simplest explanation is usually the correct one.

Anyone with a discerning brain, or inside knowledge of the matter knows I am correct.